The Boogeyman: Fear of the Unknown By. Joshua D. Glawson Throughout the vast majority of the world and all of recorded history, there have been tales of boogeymen, monsters in the dark to punish the disobedient and the susceptible. The Boogeyman goes by various names with male, female, or neutral gender- Bogieman, El Coco, Sack Man, Ou-Wu, Babayka, El Ogro, The Devil, etc. The origins of such stories are mostly unknown, as if they are a part of human nature and a mechanism for control or protection. Most of the time, the boogeyman is used as a threat by adults to vulnerable children who may or may not be misbehaving, going to risky areas, playing in the dark or night, etc. The character is said to eat children, carries children away to a hell-like place, holds children hostage, scares children enough to correct the child’s portrayed bad behavior, and other myths will suggest something similar to these. Overall, the boogeyman is unfortunately a socially approved terrorizing mechanism that plagues the mind with fear of the unknown evoking more flight than fight, since the monster is presented too strong to fight off if not invincible altogether. When we were children, we usually heard of such a beast in the dark, under our bed, in the closet, behind the closed shower curtain, in the basement, outside at night, in the forest, in that area we were told not to go, etc. In each of these cases, it was most likely told by an adult, or another adult scared another child enough that this scared child informed us of the invisible, always lurking, demon. In some cultures, a protective guardian angel of sorts, is presented as a savior of innocent children who are deemed as being good. This invisible protector is all that can immediately protect a child from the bad one out to get them.